A lot of the complexity is because HTML, as a document language, is unsuitable for the purpose of making apps, but because the browser is the only cross-platfor

A lot of the complexity is because HTML, as a document language, is unsuitable for the purpose of making apps, but because the browser is the only cross-platform environment we have (and pushing new versions is easy), that's what gets used. It seems like what we need is a sort of an integrated virtual machine for each application. The OS provides a virtual CPU+memory machine, but that needs to extend to virtual filesystem, peripherals, displays (which the OS would draw into a window), network with user-limitable urls, etc. This would prevent apps from misusing the filesystem, enable users to limit surveillance network requests, and simplify graphics.